Range Description

Endemic to the Horn of Africa. Inhabits the 20 to 40 km wide grassland plain that extends along the Indian Ocean coastline of Somalia (hunting pressure has eliminated Speke?s Gazelle from coastal grasslands south of 2Â°30'N latitude). Northern limit delimited by steep hills of the Gulis Range. Scattered groups of Speke's Gazelle were still rarely encountered in the northern Ogaden in eastern Ethiopia in the mid-1980s, but extreme hunting pressure was on the verge of eliminating the species from the Ogaden at that time. Attempts to evaluate the possible occurrence in the north-eastern Ogaden (Ethiopia) are planned, but the current security situation makes efforts to get there difficult. Interviews with local people have revealed that it is infrequent or absent from this region.

Speke?s Gazelle were formerly widespread in the open barren grasslands of north-central and north-eastern Somalia and the central coastal region. It occurred widely within its historical range in the 1980s, although its numbers had been reduced greatly by hunting, drought and overgrazing of its habitat by domestic livestock. It was common on the central coastal plain in the mid-1980s (Thurow, in press).